how to answer.

"And why are you such a doubter?" Jesus asked, coming into the foyer and standing alongside Death.

Jake struggled to answer but found he couldn't speak. The Deity's face slowly changed and then Jake found himself in the bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror, a halo now sparkling over his head.

"Why are you afraid to play God?" the mirror's reflection asked him. "You need to get on with your business and let the chips fall where they may. Let the world take care of itself. Your job is to defeat Death."

With a cry, Jake sat up in bed, blinking in the darkness, and swore under his breath. He lay back down and closed his eyes.

Suddenly, he felt so alone. Maria hadn't been there at all. She was still dead. His stomach churned and he closed his eyes and hugged himself. She's still dead and gone. If only. . .

The thought came to him all at once and he sat up again. He'd been flirting with it subconsciously for the last few weeks, turning it over in the back of his mind. Yet he'd suppressed the thought, not letting it sink in, refusing to come to grips with it. The book did hold the secret but he was too fearful to follow its instructions. He lay back in bed, fearful to go back to sleep. But his eyelids were heavy.

"Jake," the voice called softly.

Jake groaned, turning over in his bed and putting the pillow over his head.

"Jake," the voice called again, this time louder.

Abruptly, he rolled over, twisting the sheets around his ankles. "Go away. I'm trying to sleep."

"Jake," the voice murmured a third time.

"What do you want, Mom," he finally answered, now fully awake.

"Did you say your prayers?"

"No. I can't. My prayers will raise the - "

"You must say your prayers," his mother insisted.

"Do I have to?"

"If you don't - "

"Oh, okay." Jake freed himself from the snarled sheet, struggled out of bed and got down on his eleven-year-old knees, as he'd been taught by his parents. "I don't really have anything to pray for," he said, peering up at his mother and hoping his tactic would work.

"Just pray for those you love."

Abruptly, the room darkened and Jake's mother vanished. He was a grown man again, now in his own home. "Damn," he said, "what a nightmare."

And yet he knew there might be something to this idea of praying. The magic book had suggested that he might trick God, trick the collective consciousness that heard and answered prayers. It couldn't hurt, he decided. What did he have to lose.

"Pray for those you love," his mother had always answered patiently when he had been a child.

"OK." Jake swallowed, closing his eyes to recall what he had discovered in the book. He made the magic signs in the darkness and whispered the Latin phrases etched in his memory from the many times he had read and re-read the passages in the ancient manuscript. Then he switched to English to complete his task. "God, if you're really there, please send back my wife Maria." He uttered another phrase of Latin and a second in Hebrew. Then, not knowing how to stop, said a loud, "Amen."

Jake waited a moment, wondering if there really might be some sort of answer.

There was no bolt of lightning, no thunder clap.

Nothing.

"You're losing it," he told himself and laughed. "That has to be the most ridiculous thing you've ever done." He got off his knees, straightened up the sheet and blanket, and climbed back into bed.

Punching his pillow, he wondered if he'd ever get back to sleep again. He closed his eyes and tried to relax. Then he became aware of a far-off scraping.

He opened his eyes and listened in the darkness.

Nothing.

And then he heard it again. A thumping and grating somewhere on the far side of the house or maybe even in the basement.

He continued to listen for a moment and then swore in the darkness. "Damn it all. Every year those blasted mice get into the house. Have to set the traps tomorrow." He shuddered at the thought of killing the stupid little rodents, but hated having them chew up things in the kitchen and leave their droppings all over. Maybe he should get a cat.

He heard the scraping again.

The noise took on a rhythm of its own, growing louder by the moment. That's no mouse, he thought. More like someone walking. Could somebody have broken into the house? What the devil was going on?

He threw back the covers and got out onto the icy cold wooden floor. He jerked his robe off the back of the chair at the base of the four-poster bed and made his way to the open bedroom door.

He peered into the darkness and listened.

The thumping continued. It seemed to have entered the dining room.

"Who's there?" he called.

There was no answer. He stood motionless, watching and listening. Then he remembered his prayer.

And suddenly, he knew.